Give a 300-600 word report on one of the following books (links to online editions of these books are provided under 'Pages' here on Canvas). Grammar counts, and do not plagiarize: Plato: Euthyphro Pl

INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY NOTES (instructor: John Visintainer) The Pre -Socratics = The first W estern philosopher s/scientists All of the Pre -Socratic philosophers try to answer these two questions: W hat are things really like? How can we explain the process of change in things? Thales (624 -546 B.C.) (by the way, our book says ‘BCE’ , which is just a politically correct way to say ‘B.C.’) Like all of the philosophers who lived before Socrates, much or all of what Thales wrote is lost. Thales asked, “W hat kind of stuff are things composed of?” Thales saw that there are many different kinds of things --dogs, gold, mud, air... But he saw a similarity between these kinds of things. He thought of the myriad of particulars as The Many . But thought of the different things as related to each other by The One . He claimed that there was a basic stuff at the foundation of all reality... The One is water . W hy water? It does seem outlan dish to say that everything is really 100% water. However, Thales made an empirical observation about the world. W ater seems to be everywhere. He saw that water takes on many forms --freezing, evaporating, and condensing. This is crude --but is still scientific . W hat is important about Thales’ claim? This: that he raised th e question about the nature of the world. And, he tried to shift from mythology (gods) to science (the observations of condensation, evaporation, freezing ; for example ). Anaximander (born around 600 B.C.) (the second Milesian monist) (student of Thales) Anaximander agreed with his teacher, Thales, that there is one basic stuff in the world. That makes him a monist, like Thales However, he held that the stuff should be non -elemental (intangible). Anaximander held that water is an element no differen t from air or earth. W hy make water the ‘special element’? So, Anaximander said the primary substance of all things is the indeterminate and boundless realm . For Anaximander: Actual things are specific and finite, but the source of actual things is indete rminate (we don’t know what it is) and boundless (we don’t know how much) . Anaximander’s claim, unfortunately, seems like bold speculation... Because, what is this indeterminate boundless realm? Has anyone ever experienced it? Anyway, Anaximander held th at this ‘stuff’: First broke into warm and cold , and then warm and cold makes moist (water ) And then moist makes earth and air . Earth , water and air correspond to the three states of matter that we are familiar with today (solid, liquid, gas). Also, Anax imander claimed that there were ma ny universes (not just this one ), and the universes are constantly being created and destroyed. How can that be correct? Anaxime nes (around 585 -525 B.C.) another Milesian monist , student of Anaximander Anaxime nes see s the idea of the boundless as too vague and intangible. And he goes with air as the basic stuff of the world. He thought that air is spread e verywhere, and this is like Anaximander’s boundless, yet we can sense air while we cannot sense Anaximander’s ind eterminate . He is trying to split the difference between Thales and Anaximander For Anaxime nes, a ir condenses to make water, then water freezes into earth . Pythagoras (lived around 500 B.C.) dualist Music 2

Pythagoras saw that strings behave in an ord erly way when plucked. On a guitar, the lowest string, when just plucked without any fingering makes a tone (today we call it E). If you press the string exactly in the middle of the board of the guitar , it sounds one E higher exactly. The ratio is “1 to 2 ” (one half) to make the higher E ring out. These ratios can be seen in all musical instruments This phenomenon in music led Pythagoras to see the importance of numerical relations in all things. Pythagoras=all things that have shape and size have a nu merical basis. Numbers provide the limit or form for things. Yet, there are no things at all without matter . So Pythagoras and his Pythagoreans are dualists —they believe in both form and matter as ultimate In Pythagoras’ concept of medicine, for exampl e, there are no pe ople at all without some stuff —some matter —something touchable, tangible. But it i s ratios/numbers that determine how healthy they are. The human bo dy is ill or diseased or not in harmony when its beautiful structure is thrown out of syn c. The human body is in harmony or healthy when its proportions are correct. Heraclitus (lived around 500 B.C.) “All things are in flux” “You cannot step into the same river twice” “W ar is the father of all” He meant that no particular thing ever stays exactly the same forever. Dogs die, people age, mountains erode... But, there is a basic stuff: fire Fire is change, and it causes change. The one basic reality is fire, and it is the One, God. It is God (fire) that orders all things in the world to behave like they do... So God is the reason or law for all events. Human beings see all sorts of strife --arguments, wars, crimes, and we hate this conflict. But, Heraclitus sees these problems and destructions as the natural order of the world. In rea lity, nothing is ever lost, it just changes its form. The One (fire) never varies in itself, but takes on different forms. Parmenides (of Elea, born around 510 B.C.) the ultimate monist The concept of change is illogical. Because whatever exists mus t always be. Something either is or it is not. If, for example, we say a book was once raw dead plant material, then the book is going from what it wasn’t to what it is. It would be going from non -being into being. But, how could the book ever be what i t is now not? Because ‘was not’ is like non -being (nothing). But, something cannot come from nothing. Change, therefore, cannot happen. Also, there could never be 2 or more things. Because the one thing would then not be the other thing. But nothing a t all can not be. Thus there can only be ultimate monism/oneness. Only one being can exist. All reality , therefore, isThe It. The It is the one and only thing that exists, and we are just fake parts of that being! W hat can we say of the it? Only that, it is. It has always been and always will be The I t cannot have parts at all, because then one part of the It would not be the other part of the It. Therefore, the It is a spherical, material, motionless, plenum. Plenum = something with no gaps or spac es at all. The It is a big ball of glop, and it is all that is. Everything else merely seems to be, but in reality is not. Zen o (of Elea, born around 489 B.C.) Parmenides’ defender Gives us 4 paradoxes (problems) that defend Parmenides’ view that c hange really never happens. 1. The Racecourse. For a runner to make it from point A to point B, this runner has to traverse an infinite number of points. W e know that for any given line segment, there are an infinite number of geometrical or mathematical points that can be plotted on it. To ever actually get to point B from point A, you have to do it in a finite period of time, or else you will never actually g et to point B ever. But, how can you ever cover an infinite number of points in a finite amount of time? Therefore, change cannot exist. 3

2. Achilles and the Tortoise. The speedy Achilles races the slow tortoise, but agrees to give the tortoise a head start. The tortoise is always moving forward, however slowly. The head start is given, then Achill es begins. No matter how close Achilles is to the tortoise at the time that Achilles begins to run, Achilles must get to the point that the tortoise has been in order to pass the tortoise. So, no matter how close Achilles gets to the Tortoise in the course of the race, Achilles can never pass the tortoise. Therefore, change does not exist. 3. The arrow. An arrow traveling through the air must occupy an area in space equal to its length. This length never changes. ‘Never changes’=at rest. Thus, to say an arrow moves at all is to also say it does not —a contradiction! Therefore, change is an illusion. 4. The relativity of motion. Imagine three cars with equal lengths. They are all side by side, and one outside car moves forward a carlength relative to the stationary car in the middle and the other outside car moves backward a carlength relative to the stationary car in the middle. They were both moving at 2 mph, let’s say, at the exact same time. How long did it take for them to move 1 carlength relat ive to the car in the middle? The exact same amount of time that it took them to move 2 carlengths relative to each other!!!!! That’s impossible. So change is illusion. Empedocles (lived around 490 - 430) pluralist Empedocles held that there ar e many actual things. Inste ad of the It, there are the m any, and they are ultimate. This makes him a pluralist Objects in the world are composed of units of the Many. The units are the 4 elements: fire, ea rth, air, water . This 4 -element view persisted f or about 2000 years. These units are themselves indestructible, But the objects in the world themselves are destructible. Love and Hate are the forces of nature. Objects come together by virtue of the power of Love, aka Harmony, and objects are destroyed by the power of Hate , aka Discord. There is a continuous interplay between the forces of Love and Hate --causing things to build up and break down. Anaxagoras (from approximately 500 -428) another dualist There is matter —all things are material. And , there is mind —the rational principle in all matter . Mind is everywhere. Mind is in all things. Mind accounts for plants that grow towards the Sun, Mind accounts for human rational thought, Mind accounts for gravitational pull, and so on. Everything t hinks, sort of… The rea son for and occurrence of all is mind . And mind is absolutely in all things, from the streams and the mountains to the plants, animals, and human beings. This is panpsychism, and Aristotle will criticize it. The Atomists (Leu cippus [roughly 490 -430 B.C. ] and Democritus [roughly 460 -360 B.C. ]) The atomists call for the reality of space . Space is empty; it is really nothing. But it’s where the atoms are. Space needs to be spoken of at the same time t hat it is nothing . This is against Parmenides and others. Both Leucippus and Democritus think that objects are made up of atoms. ‘Atom’ literally means indivisible and indestructible. Nature consists of space and atoms, and nothing more. This concept of the atom has a long and great history. Today, w e are all taught to be atomists, aren’t we?? Different combinations of atoms go to form different objects in the world . W e are atoms, nothing more. 4

SOCRATES AND THE SOPHISTS The Sophists : Socrates lived at the same time and deba ted with them frequently about truth, virtue, knowledge, etc. Protagoras (Born around 490 B.C.) Protagoras: “Man (the individual human being) is the measure of all things.” This statement is the hallmark of “Protagorean relativism” He believes that eve rything is true ! Protagorean relativism is the philosophy that two radically different statements can both be true at the same time. The truth of a statement relies on an individual’s perception. For example, Protagoras pointed out that a wine can taste sweet to a healthy person... At the same time the same wine tastes bitter to an ill person. Is the wine sweet? W ell, Protagoras says yes and no. It depends… This relativism leads us to not hold a difference between appearance and reality. Because, we ca nnot say that the wine is really sweet, the ill person tasting bitter because of sickness. Because, we could just as easily say that the wine is really bitter. Scientific knowledge would be impossible if Protagorean Relativism holds... Because there is no objective point of view. The things in the world look one way to one person, and another way to another person... And, according to Protagoras, they are both right. Moral judgments (judgments of right and wrong, good and bad) are relative too for Protago ras. He denied that there was a universal human nature. Thus what is ethical varies. Gorgias Protagoras = every statement is true just as long as someone believes it for themselves. But Gorgias = nothing is true . There are no true statements at all. (yet, Gorgias and Protagoras agree ultimately!) 1. Nothing exists (!) 2. If anything exists, it is incomprehensible anyhow. 3. Even if it were comprehensible, it would be incommunicable. Since all thought is in language (symbols and signs), and language i s not the things in the world, we cannot know the world. W e can only know what appears , at best. Therefore, knowledge cannot be communicated. Therefore, there is no truth! All is relative, just like in Protagoras. Thrasymachus “Injustice pays” Justi ce is for simpletons and weaklings. Might makes R ight . Law, ethics, and religion are tools invented by the powers that be in order to win and keep power. ‘Right’ = the interest of the powers that be. In any situation, the powerful win and the weak los e. Morality, then, equals power (winning /profit ) and nothing more. It’s a ‘nihilistic’ view toward ethics. ‘Nihilism’ = ethics is no good, an ignoring of ethics, a rejection of ethics. SOCRATES (470 -399 B.C.) Plato’s Teacher . Plato is our chief source for all matters about Socrates (Socrates wrote nothing) The problem is, when is Plato stretching the truth about Socrates? W e know that the early writings of Plato were more objective about Socrates And the later writings were more of Plato’s ow n thoughts and theories The problem is: Plato never explicitly tells us where the real Socrates ends and the fictional Socrates begins. So, we have to guess Nevertheless, Plato always wrote in dialogue form Dialogue = 2 or more people speak 5

Socrates i s the chief debater in all of the dialogues. And he never loses But in chapter 2, we study the dialogues that seem to be the REAL Socrates These are the ‘early dialogues ’ that Plato wrote in chapter 2 Namely, Euthyphro, Apology, and Phaedo Let’s start with Euthyphro which tells of a debate between Socrates & Euthyphro Eut hyphro is a rich young man who meets Socrates at the porch of King Archon Euthyphro is there to charge his father with IMPIETY (in particular, murder , a grossly unholy/unethical act ) Euthyphro’s father left a servant to die by exposure (it was an accident) But Euthyphro still thinks it was an offense against the gods, thus, impious Thus, even Father must be charged with the most capital offense: impiety Socrates is interested! Eu thyphro must really know the definition of impiety For Socrates, to truly know anything is to have its definition handy That’s why Euthyphro is about the problem of definition. W hat is x? W hat is anything in itself? W ell, Euthyphro says, with regard t o impiety, that which is impious can be defined as that which offends the gods But Socrates does not consider this a good answer. Because, the gods often disagree! T his is a fact of the ancient Greek religion. Euthyphro sees that is a good point. So Eu thyphro now says impious = offends ALL the gods unanimously. Socrates asks, are you sure that impiety just comes from the gods’ offense arbitrarily ? Or is it that the gods are only offended by the TRULY impious? That begs the question, what is impiety!! ! In any event, Euthyphro is improperly answering the question, W hat is impiety? In the early dialogues of Plato, Socrates’ opponent always fails the test Just like in this book: Euthyphro and Socrates never find out what piety is. A negative result. Socrates just leaves his opponents in a state of aporia = perplexity. But at least now they know they don’t know! And his methods finally get him charged with impiety (in general) by Athens Socrates’ Trial: The Apology The charges (in particular) : co rruption of the youth and worshipping the gods improperly W e think Socrates was innocent of the charges, but his accusers were sophists Of course evil sophists would accuse the virtuous Socrates of impiety! Socrates won’t back down. He even clai ms to b e a gift to Athens by the gods Socrates is a fly that the horse (Athens) needs to keep it honest with it s stinging reproaches And Socrates says the Oracle at Delphi said Socrates was the wisest in Athens For Socrates is the only Athenian to know only th at he knows nothing! So, the majority of 501 jurors at the trial vote to convict (a majority is enough) , but what of the penalty? A proper fine would suffice instead of capital punishment… Socrates suggests 30 mina! ( a sum so paltry it offends the court ), and/or membership in Prytaneum, the most exclusive club for great Athenians (also offensive). Now even more jurors vote for the death penalty than voted for guilt ! 6

W hich brings us to The Phaedo (Socrates’ execution) This is no suicide. Socrates wi ll give himself the hemlock, however. All of Socrates’ friends are in his cell as Socrates prepares for death W hen given the poison to drink by the jailer, Socrates wants to make a toast! He wolfs down the poison and dies. But then awakens for his fin al words: “Crito, I owe a rooster to Asclepius, will you pay the debt?” Crito says he will, then Socrates dies Asclepius is the Greek god of healing, so why now to reward Asclepius with a fair sacrifice ? Is it be cause Socrates thinks death free s the s oul from the prison of body? Is death the ultimate cure for what ails? Does Socrates prefer the life in the afterworld to earthly life? PLATO (428 -348 B.C.) Remember that Plato is Socrates’ student. Plato writes many important works of philosophy. The three most important in the Plato chapter: Meno: The doctrine of recollection is espoused to explain how knowledge is possible Timaeus : Socrates sits back as Timaeus hims elf (a minor character) speaks about Plato’s cosmology Republic : Plato’s most important dialogue. Socrates tells us what truth, reality, and justice really are. At least, what Plato thinks they are! Plato writes everything in the form of the dialogue: Socrates talks with one or a group of other persons. But in these dialogues, P lato’s ideas are said, not Socrates’. THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE The allegory of the cave is one of the most famous passages from Plato’s most famous work: Republic. Socrates the character does most of the talking, but most scholars think that what Socr ates is saying is really the thought of Plato. Imagine persons chained to the floor of a cave. The sun does not shine here. The persons are restrained so that they can only look at one wall of the cave. On that wall, there is a shadow play, sort of like o ne would make at the movies. Behind the unrestrained persons who are making the puppet -show, there is a fire (sort of like the movie projector light) Still farther back, there is the entrance of the cave. The chained persons can never see the unrestrained persons. Therefore, the chained persons believe that the shadows are the only things that exist in the world. W hat would happen if the chained persons were released? W ell, the unrestrained ‘puppeteers’ would seem unreal . The light from the fire behind the puppeteers would be blinding . If one of the prisoners were taken outside, the light of the sun would be devastatingly bright. Eventually, the freed prisoner would come to regard the outside world as the world that is really real . He would feel sorr y for the prisoners left behind in the cave. In fact, if the released prisoner were allowed back into the cave, His fellows would scoff at him. The prisoners would say that the outside world is a fiction. Plato is suggesting that most of humanity dwells in the realm of shadows. Most of humanity does not know what is really the real. In the Republic , Pla to is concerned with education. Education is what could lift people out of the shadows into the light! Education = conversion. People must be taught to look in the correct direction. THE DIVIDED LINE 7

In the Republic, Plato (through the mouth of Socrates) gives us a chart. The Cave Allegory is to set -up this chart This chart is the Divided Line, and it outlines Plato’s ontology . Ontology = the branc h of philosophy directed a t finding reality . W hat follows is an account of Plato’s Divided Line: 8

IMAGES/IMAGINING Imagine a horse. Got it? Now this horse you are imagining certainl y lacks the realism that a physical horse has. Our imagination is al ways deficient to actual physical horses. The Divided Line points that out. MATERIAL OBJECTS /BELIEF Now when we encounter a horse in a stable, why does Plato correlate this with belief and not knowledge? Plato wants to show that ‘seeing is believing’ a nd seeing is only believing. Sometimes Lake Erie looks blue, and sometimes, from a different perspective, the same lake looks green. Compare that result with Protagorean Relativism. Colors, smells, etc. are not ultimate reality. The mind is still unsati sfied with this type of ‘knowledge ’, because of its relativity. Therefore, even though Cigar (a horse) is more real than the image we can conjure of him, we still seek a more certain type of o bject --one that does not change like Cigar does (he ain’t that fast no more) . MATHEMATICAL OBJECTS/THINKING: Scientists engage in the process of abstraction. They like to reduce the physical world to equations, for example. They like to deal with the geometry of triangles rather than visible triangles. This is cer tainly an advancement over the realm of material objects. However, these mathematical objects are certainly limited. For example, when we know principles of triangles that are true, like ‘all triangles have three interior angles whose total is 180 degrees’ we still don’t have the prop er whole view of triangularity. Triangles have more to them than that one fact . FORMS/KNOW LEDGE: The Form of Triangle is no single triangle, but it is the whole of triangularity. To really know about triangles, you must be a ble to know everything about triangles in general The Form of Person, similarly, encompasses all persons —not individuals in their individuality W hat are Forms? Forms must be eternal. For example, many things in the world are beautiful. A tough, well -turned double play in baseball is beautiful. The Mona Lisa is a beautiful work of art. Both the beautiful work of art and the beautiful sports -play owe their beauty to The Form called ‘Beauty’ Beauty, aka the Form of the Beautiful alw ays exists, this mean s that it is eternal. The Form of the Beautiful is always bea utiful and never not beautiful. T his means that it never changes w ith regard to its Formal nature. All Forms never change with regard to what they are in their Formal nature. Plato says that b eautiful things in the world owe their beauty to the fact that they participate in the Form of the Beautiful. The truly beautiful owes its beauty to Beauty itself Plato also holds that there is the Form of Animal. All animals must participate in this F orm of Animal. But, look at all the different kinds of animals: Squids, monkeys, dogs, etc. In all their differences , they are still all animals. By examination of all the different creatures we call ‘animals’, we start to know the Form of Animal. Just as the Form of Beauty must be beautiful, Plato says, the Form of Animal must be animal -like! But, we could say, if this Form is animal -like, then isn’t it perishable like all animals? If it is perishable, then isn’t a thing that changes? Then, if it changes, then isn’t it not a Form at all?! Plato says no, the animals on earth only are perishable. They are imperfect copies of the Form of Animal. The Form of Animal is permanent. Unlike a physical animal which of course will happen to die someday . 9

Here are some other For ms : Horse , Person, Justice, The Good (the most chief of all forms) . Notice that the Form ‘Horse’ must be a sub -Form of the Form ‘Animal’. This is okay, says Plato, just remember that the Form ‘Animal’ is more chief than the Form ‘ Horse’. Plato rejected the notion that there should be a Form for every physical or imaginary thing. Plato held that there were not Forms of ‘Dirt’ and ‘Fingernails’, for example. And t here’s no Form of Unicorn! If there were Forms for each and every th ing in the material world, then the Realm of the Forms would just be an immaterial, duplicate realm of the material world. T his would not be what Plato has in mind. W hat and W here is the Realm of the Forms? Plato would seem to insist that the Realm of t he Forms is nowhere! It is only things in the world that are given in space and time. For example, dog s (like the individual dog ‘Barney’) only exist in a certain place for a certain time. I know for a fact that Barney never left the State of Ohio, and h e only lived for 13 years. The Form of Dog, however, which Barney participated in, remains forever. The Form of Dog does not exist anywhere in space --it is immaterial. Forms are related to things in the world in one of 3 ways First, it is Forms that cau se certain things to behave like they do. Dogs, for example, do what dogs essentially do because of the Form of Dog. Second, things participate in the Forms. The beautiful piece of music (like Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony) participates in the Form of the Be autiful. Third, things can be said to copy the Forms. But physical things are always poor imitations of the Formal W e come to know the Forms in one of 3 ways: First, Plato mentions recollection . Plato (in his book called Meno ) argues for the conclusio n that we all have known the Forms before we were born. For some reason or another, we have lost our knowledge, but we can get it back. Especially through dialectic Second, is dialectic . Dialectic is teaching at its best --with two people engaging in a sharing of ideas. Dialectic (sometimes known as the ‘Socratic Method’) results invariably in greater understanding on both sides. Third is desire or love of the subject being studied. Philosophy itself is Greek for ‘love of wisdom’ PLATO’S MORAL PHILOS OPHY AND THEORY OF THE HUMAN SOUL Concept of the Soul Plato thought that the soul was tripartite Reason , spirit , and appetite . Reason: rational, makes proper logical decisions when working properly. Can’t be wrong, when it’s right! Spirit: ACT ION . Th e spirited element of the soul just drives toward a goal —like physical fitness —relentlessly. Appetite: Base and ordinary —the drive for food, sex, simple pleasures, money, etc. Plato beautifully shows the problems of being a good person in his Phaedrus . In that book, he describes persons as charioteers. The charioteer tries to get to the correct logical destination. One horse will respond to the good wishes of the charioteer, but the other horse misbehaves. Plato seems to think that the pursuit of the goo d life is a constant stru ggle to stay on the right track to Justice. Plato thinks that Socrates was correct in stating that wrongdoing is the result of ignorance. The Good life --the right way of living --is a product of virtue. Virtuous a ction can be taug ht and learned just like any subject. W hat needs to be taught is the limits for the 3 parts of the soul. The appetitive part of the so ul needs to be taught temperance . For example, the appetite needs to know what the proper amount is. It should learn the proper medium between too little consumption and too much consumption. The spirited element of the soul needs to be taught courage . Courage is the middle ground between two extremes: Cowardice and Foolhardiness. 10

The third part of the soul, Reason , atta ins wisdom for the whole person when it can be unhindered by and totally controls the spirited and appetitive elements of the soul. W hen the soul has all its elements operating corre ctly, persons start to participate in the Form of Justice . Persons act v irtuously and thus justly when their souls are properly trained and functioning. PLATO’S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY ‘The state as man writ large.’ This means that the state (nation) should be looked at as LIVING (organic). The proper state is like the virtuou s human being. It is like a hive that needs it’s bees to do their jobs Therefore, Plato says that the state --like the soul --is tripartite. The state has its appetitive element --this is made up of the workers . Plato sees the workers as drones, more or l ess. Although they ought to and can use reason they do nothing except try to ‘get more’ to consume for themselves. The workers are rabble --Plato sees them as necessary for the state, but they don’t have much honor. Still, they should do their jobs well. Next, the state has its spirited e lement —warriors . The w arriors are like armed forces or police . They are brave and very skilled, but they are instructed to be only agents of the state. Still, they are more noble than w orkers. Finally, there are the rulers, who are like th e rational element of the soul. They have the fullest capability for rationality without distraction. It is this philosopher -king who should be the ruler(s). Notice that democracy is rejected. The p hilosopher -king is not voted o n by the workers and warriors. Rather, Plato wants the smartest, most qualified people to be educated to become rulers and then appointed. THE DEGENERATION OF THE IDEAL STATE The proper government is the aristocracy . This is the state Plato has outlined --with the best people at the helm, and the underlings in their proper place. Timocracy could be seen as a takeover by the army. The love of honor (of country) overtakes the rational guidance of the Philosopher -King. Even if the Philosopher -King is sti ll the ruler, you could have a timocracy if love of honor overtakes love of reason. Our aristocrat has become a timocrat. But he can disintegrate further… A plutocracy is a society dominated by consumption (consumerism) The Plutocrat leads her or his f ollower s in the desire for more goods —just for the sake of more goods . This is a very materialistic society, and militarily weakened Democracy is a further degeneration for Plato. Now neither intelligence, honor, no r pleasure necessarily matter. In a democracy, whatsoever is d ecreed by the voters as ‘Good’ becomes the Good . “One desire is as G ood as another in a democracy ” “Even the dogs don’t get out of the way in the streets in a democracy .” W e can call what is truly the Good the ‘Evil’ in a democracy, because the wisdom of the Philosopher -King is trounced by the populace. Morals change from day to day! W orst, we have despotism . Thi s is a total totalitarian state, but it is not Good like aristocracy is. W hat is the difference between despot ism and Plato’s perfect state? W ell, in the perfect state ( aristocracy), the rulers are schooled in the ways of Justice . In despotism, you just have an unschooled leader taking the people in the direction in which they think they want to go. Hitler’s Nazi Germany is a great example of what Plato was talking of with despotism PLATO’S COSMOLOGY as told in his book: The Timaeus Cosmology = study of the universe Plato saw regularity with the observable universe. The stars and planets and the Sun and Moo n all behave with a clockwork precision (though not perfectly) . Pla to concluded thus: the cosmos must be the work of intelligence. Plat o seems well aware of the claim that ‘nothing can come from nothing’ So, Plato says that there is not a creator God, who created from nothing, but rather a Demiurge --a craftsman. The craftsman encounters chaos in the form of matter , but in this chaos is still stuff that exists before the craftsman . W hat the Demiurge does is make order from chaos. Things in the univers e are made from what Plato calls the Receptacle, that matter that existed before the Demiurge. W e can think of the receptacle as not earth, air, fire, or water, but a featureless stuff from which things in the world are made. It’s like a featureless bolt of cloth from which to make clothing. Sometimes Plato refers to the receptacle as ‘space’ , sometimes he refers to it as ‘matter’! Plato seems to be influenced very much by the Pythagoreans, all of who m loved triangles. 11

Plato thinks that every thing is really made up of microscopic triangles (2 dimensional), that combine to make microscopic three -dimensional objects (like cubes ) Cubes are made up of 6 square surfaces. In turn, every square surface is made up of two ‘half -square triangles’. The tetrahe dron is made up of 4 equilateral triangles , for example . The cube is made of 6 2 half -square faces. W orld Soul (the O rder the Demiurge left behind) makes the triangles from the Receptacle, then makes the triangle s into solid bodies: cube, icosa hedron, tetrahedron, and octahedron, which a re 4 of the Five Perfect Solids of the Pythagoreans . Different tiny solids account, then, for earth, water, fire, and air: the 4 elements . Evil (such as with mutation or defect) only occurs because the Demiurge has p roblems in His way. Evil occurs because the Demiurge is prevented from doing fully what He would have like d to do —create a perfect world. W hat is Time ? Plato says that there is no time without material things. And only now that there are material things with regular motions, especially the heavens, does time even exist . W e today still just keep time by the heavens . The Forms , of course, remain tim eless. There is no Form of Time . Time, for Plato, is not ultimately real. ARISTOTLE (384 -322 B.C.) Ancient Greek philosopher and, basically, inventor of science Aristotle was unquestioned as the best student at Plato’s Academy But, “Dear is Plato , but dearer still is the truth, ” Aristotle is said to have said. Aristotle invented formal logic . formal = using symbolization to show a structure “All dogs are mammals, All poodles are dogs, So, all poodles are mammals ” becomes “All b are c, all a are b, So, all a are c”. This is one form of valid argumentation. Try it with fruit, apples, and Granny Smi th apples. This type of reasoning always leads from known truths to new truths. This is called valid argumentation , valid syllogistic . Valid =100% sure . There are many valid forms of argument . But most forms are invalid = no good. W e still teach Ari stotelian logic today. Aristotelian logic = syllogistic logic = traditional logic. Aristotle figures that science will determine what is real, but logic makes the relation of language and reality certain. Now, Aris totle thinks he has discovered T he C ate gories = the 9 and only 9 ultimate types of predicates . Quantity quality relation place date posture possession action passivity 2 Kind Parents Cleveland 1/1/01 Sitting Mine Readin g Resting (for examples) Then, he thinks that The C ategories can be used to determine the genus, species, individual of things “The killer was insane.” Insane = genus “The killer was schizophrenic” schizophrenic = species (specific type of insanity) “The killer was Jane” Jane = individual (one particular person) Jane the individual is participating in the species ‘schizophrenic’; and so in the genus ‘insane’ W e naturally induce from individual first to then species and then to genus via the categories. Logic is demonstrati ve reasoning that is 100% accurate, unlike anything else on earth. But i n order to k now that our logic conforms to reality, we nee d to establish ‘first principles’ … First Principles = 100% absolute truths that are intuited , not logically deduced. Intuition = seeing with the mind’s eye the truth of something. In The Metaphysics , Aristotle sear ches for these first principles, and thinks they can only be gotten via intuition . Since the Islamic Philosophers of the ear ly Middle Ages called this book by Aristotle The Metaphysics , ever since then this topic in philosophy (the examination of ultimate reality and first principles ) is called ‘metaphysics’. Aristotle says we know that something is what it is due to the sense s and sensory observation But, we know how something is what it is due to first principles = first philosophy. 12

Sufferers of gout only know that Indocin cures , whereas pharmacists know how Indocin cures (via chemistry) , e.g. Scientists and philosophers kn ow how something is the case, not just that it is the case . Study of how’s is the same as the study of why’s. W hy, why, why?? = first philosophy W hy are things the way they are ? W hy is ‘x’ the way it is and not something else? How does anything be? H ow are things qua things? W hy is there order in the universe instead of pure chaos? Answer: Ultimately, all things must be made of substance . Substance literally means to stand under. There must be something that makes things exist = stands under. And substance is what is truly understood! Substance is the essence of all things. Substance itself has no qualities that w e can see, but makes things have qualities. These qualities come from form and matter , which adhere in substance. Never is matter wi thout form, and never is form without matter. You are a form/matte r amalgamation. Your humanity is a form that is dependent on the matter informing it, and vice versa. Change in matter = change in form. But note, form has a small f . The Forms are gone now. No forms exist without matter, for Aristotle W hen you know dogness, you have just abstracted the form called ‘dog’ from the real things —dogs. Dogness really fin ds its home in individual dogs , then in our mind as form, not in the realm of Plato’s Forms. Now, what makes things what they are = what causes them to be like they are. So, to have true know ledge about things i s to know about causes . Things are the way that they are due to 4 types of causes always , according to Aristotle : Formal c ause . A dog is a dog because of the form of dog inherent in it , for example Material cause . A dog is a dog because it is made of blood, water, bone, lymph, etc., for example . Efficient cause . A dog is a dog because some dogs ( its mom and dad) made it. O ther wise, it would not exist Final cause . The dog is a dog for the purpose of being man’s best friend . Every thing is here for a reason. W hat is the only 1 of these 4 that we still recognize in modern science ? Efficient cause. Potentiality & Actuality. All things are actually something othe r than what they potentially can become . To think of an acorn as only an acorn is to not recognize its potentiality. All things are striving for their end = final cause = telos = teleology = goal special for them . Why is there everything striving for an end at all? Because there is one ultimate end that all things are ultimately striving for. The Unmoved Mover . The Unmoved Mover (UM) is called ‘Theos ’ by Aristotle, but it did not create The Universe . Instead, it is just central to The U niverse. It does nothing but act as an influence on everything. It is the ultimate final cause, so the ultimate efficient cause, sort of. All actions on Earth are caused by the heavenly bodies , they influenced by the UM, which on ly influences itself!!! Ultimately the UM runs the whole show on earth but not in an active way. In book s called The Physics and On the Soul , Aristotle changes his mind on matter and form slightly. Here, he looks at matter as primary to form. Matter be comes prime matter. This view is the popular scientific view today = materialism. He claims that everything has within it a principle by which it ‘knows’ how to act. Even inanimate objects. This is called entelechy. It determines that rocks fall to the earth and rivers flow to the sea, etc. 13

Now, he invents biology , saying that all living things have a very sophisticated telos within them = soul . Plants have just a vegetative soul . They ‘know ’ how to grow and reproduce , unlike rocks or water Animals have a sensitive soul , plus a vegetative one. They ‘know ’ how fight and flee as well as grow. Humans have plant and animal soul + rational soul W e grow + sense + do rational activities like logic and science. The definite form of a creature’s body i s its soul. It is humanness that makes us have intelligence, for example Our bodies are special. They determine our ability to be human. You can’t be human without a living human body. And if you are a living human body, you are ipso facto human. It goes both ways, for Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics : Also teleological = W hat’s our purpose? W hat is the purpose of human life? Every human being is striving for an end. Some ends are instrumental = good for something else. Bench presses are good fo r bigger pectorals , which a re good for improved strength , which is good for wrestling, etc. … But what is the ultimate intrinsic end (intrinsic=good in itself) for which we do everything, including trying to improve our looks???? W hat is our ultimate and specific function as human beings? First we must remember that humans are rational beings. Our highest and most important function is to use rationality. W e are still physical beings, and that matters, but never as much as our minds. Mechanics love to study cars. Football coaches love to watch films. Philosophers love to read philosophy. For what? So that we can perform well. Morality is the study of human acts and their performance How does then everyone want to act? So that they will be happy . Happiness is the final end for everyone, auto mechanics, football coaches, philosophers, etc. Now, how can we guarantee our own happiness? By being virtuous . Virtue will be acting in accordance with The Golden Mean . The Golden Mean = the middle betw een two extremes: one a vice of deficiency, the other a vice of excess. Take neither too little of something nor too much of it. This is what the Golden Mean is all about At a party, how many snacks should you have? None = prudish. Almost all the snac ks = gluttonous. A handful or two exhibits the virtue of temperance, for example. A student always comes late to cla ss. How should you react? No reaction = milquetoast. Screaming = excessively angry. Virtue = having the proper reaction (“ahem, please try to be prompt” , for example ) Aristotle admits that not every virtue is on The Golden Mean between two extremes. He realize d that the proper amount of murder , stealing, rape, and adultery = NEVER. Of course, if we do something involuntarily , we are n ot responsible for it. Only voluntary action is either moral or immoral. Along with moral virtue, whose object is the Golden Mean, he asks us to be also intellectually virtuous = pursue knowledge. An ‘excess’ of knowledge would never be bad. Knowl edge is good, and more is better , always. The Politics . “The human being is a political animal.” Politics is natural. Therefore, the state is OK = natural. Aristotle is against democracy in general (rule by the mob) and for aristocracy in general (rule by the wise). Aristotle says slavery is OK (!), so long as only those that are fit to be enslaved (the slavish ) are enslaved. For example, slaves will revolt if they are not fit to be enslaved. Unfair inequality is the source of revolution . He is not an advocate of capturing slaves in battle or enslaving solely on racial grounds. Philosophy of Art : Arist otle is more sympathetic to playwright s and artist s than Plato is. Because universals are actually in the objects and not in the Form Realm, the artist captures u niversals like Beauty very well, Aristotle thinks . The artist is not nearly worthless says Aristotle. The artist is very valuable. Also, in a play or a poem we see forms like Justice or Loyalty better than we would in history books. Art invol ves The Universals , aka, forms. W hereas, history involves mere details = particulars. 14

AQUINAS (1225 -1274 ) Ethnically Italian, but writes in Latin and attends University of Paris. W e need now to drastically leave the world of the Ancient Greeks. W e move all the way to the 13th Century in Europe. St. Thomas Aquinas was born around 1225 and died in 1274. He was made a Saint of the Catholic Church for his contributions in Natural Theology. Natural Theology is really a branch of philosophic study. And its concern is with the nature and existence of God, and then the philosophy that follows from God’s being. Aquinas offers 5 proofs for the existence of God. W e call Aquinas’ Five W ays ‘cosmological’ generally. Cosmological proofs for the existence o f God are typically this: they involve, first, observation of the workings of the world (cosmos) then, from observation of the world, cosmological proofs use logic. Cosmos + logic = cosmological. Cosmological proofs say that the only way the world can be like it is, is with the existence of God. Before we get to the proofs, wha t did Aquinas think that God would be like , if He existed ? God would be perfect. He would have no defects at all. So, He would not be evi l, not even a little bit, because evil i s a defect. He would not have ever come into being, and He could never go out of existence either... Because then he would have to not exist at one time or another. To not exist is to lack being, and God cannot lack at all. God would be forever. And he w ould be Creator of all, too. God would be all -loving. In fact, Aquinas says that God is love, if He exists. God would be omniscient (all -knowing) and God would be omnipotent (all -powerful) . Now, can Thomas prove such a being exists? Proof from motion Consider a particular domino in a chain of dominoes ready to be knocked down. Dominoes only get knocked down when acted upon. In fact, our observation of the cosmos reveals that everything is such that it does not move unless acted upon by an outside forc e. In other words, everything in the cosmos is potentially moving , that means it is ready to go. But, ‘potentially moving’ just means not yet moving . Potentially moving = not moving. “Nothing goes from potentiality to actuality without being actually affected.” Aquinas’ most important point here is: If we are to explain motion, then we cannot have an infinite regress. There must have been a FIRST MOVER . This first mover is known as ‘God’. Therefore, God exists. Proof from efficient cause There are no statues without their efficient cause: the sculptor There are no dogs for example without their efficient causes: their parents. Aquinas says we should all agree on those premi ses. Now, we must all agree that in any cause and effect relationship, the cause is always prior to the effect. Now, nothing happens without a cause, so all the effects we see must have has causes, but, th e parents of a dog must have had parents and we see another infinite regress coming -- To stop the infinite regress, we must have a FIRST CAUSE. Therefore, God exists. Proof from n ecessary versus possible being The things in the world that we observe are all ‘possible beings’. They all came into existence, and they will all go out of existence. For example, it is possi ble that SAC could be bulldozed. Possible beings=they have the capability to not -be. All possible beings were at one time not . And will be not at some future time. 15

However, if all beings were such that they are just all possible beings, then at some time they were all not . That would imply that at some time in the past, there existed nothing . But, we know that nothing could come from nothing, so without a necessary being, there would be only nothingness So there must be a being that is not a ‘possibl e being’ but a ‘necessary being ’, because the universe does exist. God is that ‘necessary being’ . Thus, God must exist. Proof from the degrees of perfection This proof seems Platonic. It is based on Plato’s notion that we only know good things by know ing The Good. Aquinas is sayi ng that, for example, we find some things to be better than others. Is it all opinion? No. Thus, Aquinas seems to say that the only way we could know what is best is if there actually is some entity that is best. God is tha t best entity. Therefore, God must exist. Otherwise , we would have nothing to judge g oodness by ! Proof from the order of the universe This is still generally a cosmological proof, but specifically it is teleological = having to do with purpose /design . The cosmos is orderly and regular and beautiful. It is plain to Aquinas that this order is out of design . How could it be an accident that we have Providence —the things we need to surv ive? Clean air, water, food, etc. You do not ever have a design wi thout a designer. Guess who designed the universe. That’s right, God! QED. “The negative way” Although Aquinas has now proved that God exists, we need to know more about God. W e can learn so much at first from what we know God cannot be now that we have completed the Five W ays. The Five W ays showed that God is: unmoved , unchangeable , time less Furthermore, we know that God is immaterial and with out parts More positively now , Aquinas finds from the proofs that God is pure act W hereas I am actually a college instructor, but only potentially a game show host, God = pure actuality. W hereas I have being (we all owe our existence to God, not ourselves, of course ), God is being. In other words, ordinary things, animals, people, etc., are this and that, whereas God just is W hereas our essential charact eristic is to be a human being, God’s essential characteristic is to exist . God is is -ness! The act of creation: W e should ask, did God create t he world at some time in the past ? If He did, we could conc lude that God was in a state of potentiality, sitting on his hands, bored, so to speak, which is disregarded in the 5 proofs (God is supposed to be pure act ). But on the other hand, if God didn’t create at a certain time, then the universe is eternally ol d! How the creator and created by of the same age! W hat a dilemma! Aquinas does not do a very good job of answering this dilemma , it seems. He just says the Bible is correct! There was a creation of the world ex nihilo just as the first book of The Bi ble accounts. Ex nihilo : from nothing. W ithout God, there would exist nothing at all. Aquinas says God created the universe from absolutely nothing to work with. Everythin g, therefore, is created by God. Every thing is a creature of God Is this the b est of all possible world s? From our vantage point, it certainly seems sometimes to lack perfection. Aquinas’ point would be that our vantage point is not good enough to judge whether this is the best possible universe. But there is no way God could hav e done a bad job! Since God is perfect, his creation can only be best. So, Aquinas goes on to say that this world must contain the best possible arrangement of the kinds of things that have been cre ated. From God’s perspective, the correct perspective, there is no imperfection. Evil as privation ‘Privation’ = lack. W hat Aquinas says is that God is not t he cause of e vil at all because evil is literally nothing! All evil events contain a lack in them. The acts of the Nazis on their enemies in W W II disp lays a lack of compassion. Ther e was a hole where their conscience was supposed to be . Evil is a nothingness, not God’s doing. It is just the fact of the ma tter that persons can act with freewill , Aquinas thinks. 16

Evil results from our free will —our abili ty to choose one course or another. But we can do Good too, if we will it. But then, w hy make human beings with their free will if we could be evil then ? Isn’t that making evil outright? The chain of being (there are levels of existence, and the gap be tween man and God proves angels exist!) 1. God (pure B eing, His essence is to exist) 2. Angels (purely intelligent without any essential physical component ) (they necessarily fill slot #2) 3. Human Beings (part intelligence, part ‘animal’ . Esse ntially bo th physical and intelligent ) 4. Animals (just animal, they have the abilities of mating, moving, and sensation , but no real intellect ) 5. Plants (they can only grow and reproduce ) 6. The Elements (fire, air, earth, water. Just dead stuff like rocks and ic e) MORALITY AND NATURAL LAW Three basic tenets of Natural Law Theory of Aquinas 1. “Do good and avoid evil.” This includes helping others and yourself to survive. 2. Procreation should occur only in wedlock. (And even sex in wedlock should only be for procreation) 3. Live in peace with one’s neighbors. Laws should, then, be directed toward these three tenets. Aquinas now sets up his Natural Law Theory, with its 4 types of law. 1. Eternal Law. “The very idea of the ruling of things by God has the nature of a law.” God’s law must be timeless and not change. 2. Natural Law. “That portion of the Eternal Law that applies directly to persons.” Human beings possess the capacity to r eason, and through reason we can apprehend the Eternal Law. Na tural Law consists of “broad general principles that reflect God’s intentions for man.” 3. Human Law. This is the law of governments. The law of the State of Ohio is that Aggravated Murder is a felony punishabl e by death. Notice that the Human Law is never good only because it was passed. Rather, Human Laws are good if and only if they accord with the Natural Law. “W e ought to obey God rather than persons.” Divine Law. Found in Scripture. This is a program for finding our supernatural end (salvati on). Divine Law comes through revelation, rather than reason. This involves Revealed Theology, not Natural Theology. Divine Law is not really part of Natural Law Theory, but is necessary to follow for the supernatural reward (heaven) THE STATE The sta te/nation must be subordinate to the Church. The state is not a product of our sinfulness, but is rather a necessary entity. The state is like the individual person, because the state and the individual both have natural and supernatural ends. States sh ould be both ethical and holy, like the Holy Roman Empire Positive human law (which are just laws on the books) must always be derived philosophically from the Natural Law. If the sovereign (king, dictator, President) decrees a human law that is in viola tion of the Natural Law, then the sovereign is to be not obeyed . His law is nothing compared to the law of God HUMANITY The hu man soul: Aristotle thought that the soul was the form of an individual’s body. Aquinas says that human beings are at base ph ysical beings , in this he agrees with Aristotle. Yet, human b eing = the unity of body and soul. Soul has both passive (connected to the senses) and active intellect (much closer to the fact we are created in God’s image) . Every person is comprised of matter (blood and guts),and the form of this physical substance = their soul. Interestingly, angels essentially have only intellect . They are not corrupted by physical substance. 17

KNOWLEDGE Aquinas holds that all knowledge can only be gained by first h aving sense experiences. Therefore, we are not born with any innate knowledge. “Nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses.” Knowledge is in fact gained by arriving at universals. Universals are encountered only from concrete physical part iculars. Universals are just another name for what Aristotle called forms. For example, we begin to learn about the universal ‘tree’, from encountering actual physical particular trees. The universal, then, is abstracted from particular things. This is done by the part of the human soul called the passive intellect . Then the active intellect of humans can ‘realize’ that (gasp!) all trees are plants! (for example) Aquinas explicitly denies the Platonic notion that universals have a reality sep arate fro m concrete particulars, excep t Aquinas believes they exist in the mind of God Himself , of course. Universals have reality in t he human mind, God, and objects for Aquinas . REACTIONS TO AQUINAS Voluntarism “In God, His will is supreme.” John Duns Scotus (1265 -1308) W hereas Aquinas held that God wills that which is rational, John Duns Scotus held that whatever God wills is rational just because God willed it. Scotus t hought that if God was constrain ed to only doing the rational, Then God could not be all-powerful, so, then God could not be God! So, Scotus held that God could do whatever He wants! W hatever God does becomes the rational merely because God effected it. God’s Law (Eternal Law), therefore, would remain forever extra -rational, says Scotus. Morality, then, would not be a matter of rationality, but of faith and acceptance. W hatever God says is right is right, logic be damned. Bottom Line: God is over and above ordinary human reason. Nominalism W illiam of Ockham (1280 -1349) “Only c oncrete individuals (physical objects) exist.” Universals are but in the mind and made -up. Universal terms such as ‘person’ are merely signs or names (nominate = name) Aquinas did say that universals did exist outside our minds --in the mind of God and in the objects themeselves . Ockham rejects this Thomistic view. Thomas, and others like Plato and Aristotle , are just making stuff up! “No universal is anything existing outside the minds of persons.” --Ockham “Multiply entities only according to nece ssity.” = Ockham’s Razor. The simplest explanation is the best. Mysticism Johannes Eckhart. (around 1260 -1327) Natural Theology per se is worthless to him! God is above being. All is mysterious. All is revealed theology. Logic and philosophy are worthless. Any true knowledge of God is beyond human beings. Therefore, God is above our comprehension. Aquinas’ method attempts to deduce God’s existence from the visible world. Eckhart claims that the visible world is lower than God. Thus there is no possibility of natural theology. DESCARTES (1596 -1650) French . Inventor of analytic geo metry. the quadratic formula, and more… René Descartes is known as ‘The Father of Modern Philosophy’. The Modern period in philosophy starts, indee d, with De scartes, and ends with Immanuel Kant. Descartes will be forever famous for his contributions to mathematics and philosophy. 18

Descartes saw mathematics as a beautiful thing, because mathematics discovers truths which are indubitable . W hy, Descartes asked, cannot we use the paradigm of mathematics to draw conclusions on the most difficult questions of all — philosophical questions? Philosophy needs to use the math. t ools of intuition and deduction . Intuition = a faculty for getting at the truth. For exampl e, there might be no really good proof for the conclusion that ‘all dogs are dogs’. However, Descartes says that we know this (and other truths) intuitively . Now, along with a collection of intuitions that we can hold, we can rely on the logical method of deduction to arrive at new intuitive truths. Deduction can be defined as rigorous mathematical or logical proof. For example, if we know that ‘all labs are dogs’, and ‘all dogs are mammals’, we could use deduction to conclude that ‘all la bs are mammals’ . Now, it is true that our deduction above really did not tell us something we did not already know. But, maybe deduction will sometimes let us in on new truths. Especially when applied to philosophical questions! The importance of sense experience: De scartes puts less emphasis on sense experience, and much more on rationality. Descartes, for that r eason, is known as one of the ‘R ationalists’. The example of the wax : How can anyone grasp the essential characteristics of wax from sense experience? Des cartes asks us to imagine a piece of beeswax. Beeswax melts very easily. N ow, if I present you with a piece of beeswax that is solid, and then melt it, the way in which the beeswax smells, tastes, sounds, looks, and feels would all be different -- but we still KNOW it is one and the sa me substance ! Thus, substantia l knowledge can’ t come from the senses. Descartes answe rs that the only way we can understand what bodies (like t he piece of wax) are in substance (not appearance) is through rationality , not experience. That’s why Descartes is called a rationalist. (W e will get to the essential characteristic of bodies in general in a moment.) The Cartesian Method (Methodic Doubt): Descartes, in his Meditations , doubt s everything about which he was not certa in. If something only appears true and/or real, it must now be doubted according to the Method. This Cartesian Methodical doubt goes pretty far!: He doubts all facts, even math facts like 2 + 2 = 4! Descartes doubts the reality of his surroundings: the pen he was holding, the stove -heated room he was in, the paper on which he was writing. W hy should he believe anything is real at this point? Descartes says, maybe he is dreaming that the objects he sees are real. Or hallucinating. Furthermore, Desca rtes doubts the existence of his own body! May be, he says, he is dreaming that he has a body as well. Or, maybe he’s experiencing phantom pain, like amputees feel in limbs that have been amputated! The existence of God is also d oubted by Descartes. He says that instead of God, maybe there is an evil demon. This evil demon could trick us into bel ieving that we have bodies, that 2 + 2 = 4, that there are other people like us, etc., when in fact, non e of these things are really true ! They would be merely illusions . The reversal of doubt can only come if Descartes can find a single truth that is absolutely certain, no matter what. Here it is: Even though D escartes himself is doubting , he is indubitably doubting . Doubting = a type of thinking . There is no doubt, then, that he is thinking. W ho is thinking? Descartes! He thinks, therefore, he exists. I think, therefore, I am. Cogito ergo sum . In doubting my own existence, I just prove it! This truth is the first unquestionable truth to which De scarte s can fix the rest of philosophy. Note, the thing that thinks is not Descartes’ brain! (Brain = just a part of the body) All Descartes can say is that he is a th inking thing —AKA mind, soul, spirit, or consciousness. The body is unknown yet A thing th at thinks is a thing that also: affirms, denies, wills, understands, imagines, loves, and feels. 19

“No thought can exist apart from a thing that thinks.” Thus , immaterial mind must exist —it is proven. Criterion of truth: W hat is required of a sentence in order for it to be called true? Clearness and distinctness Clear = present to an attentive mind. Distinct = that which is different from all other objects. The proposition, “I think, therefore, I am,” is true because it is clear and distinct to the min d. Descartes’ method has brought this clear and distinct concept to our attention. The existence of God : Descartes thought that he could not use Aquinas’ proofs for the existence of God. Because, Aquinas’ proofs are cosmological, they rely on our observa tions of the world. Note that Descartes has not proved anything at all about the cosmos yet! So, Descartes examines th e only things he can right now —his ideas. Descartes claims that some ideas are innate, some are invented, and some ‘come from without’. Desc artes observed his idea of God: God must be all -pow erful, all -knowing, and perfect . Descartes knows for a fact that he, Descartes, is not perfect and not all -knowing and not all -powerful. Descart es takes as true the fact that a finite substance (Desc artes’ mind) could not have produced Descartes’ idea of infinity and perfection. The ideas of perfecti on etc. could only come from outside of Descartes, therefore. They had to come from somethi ng which is perfect and all -powerful and all -knowing ! The ul timate thing which produced Descartes’ clear and distinct ideas of perfection etc. is God. Therefore, God exists as the necessary cause of those ideas This proof is called a proof from causation. It proceeded from ideas of what God must be to the necess ary cause of those ideas in any person who thinks them. Descartes now gives a second proof for the existence of God. This proof is called ‘ontological’, because it proceeds from ou r idea of what God must be. ‘onto’ is Greek for being . Descartes claims that we have a clear and distinct idea of what God would be like. God is, for one thing, perfect . Now, since we have this idea tha t God is perfect if he exists; then, in order to be perfect, he must be. Because, you can never have a perfect thing that does not exist. Non -existence entails non -perfection. Think about it! Since our idea of God is that God must be perfect, then God must exist! It is part of God’s nature to exist! The existence of the physical world and other persons : God’s existence a nd Desc artes’ existence are now proven . W hat about things in the world? Descartes calls them ‘bodies’. Descartes says that we can have a clear and distinct idea about the essential characteristic of all bodies --the are all made up of ‘extended substanc e’. The essential characteristic of bodies is that they take up space. They have he ight, width, and length. They extend in 3 dimensions. All other things about them —shape, size, etc. —are just minor details. Our ‘overwhelming inclination’ to claim th at our sense impressions of bodies is actually caused by bodies and not be imagination or hallucination leads us to believe that there are actually material things outside our minds. God knows that we have this ‘overwhelming inclination’, this clear and d istinct idea about bodies, and God would not fool us, for He is no deceiver. All of our clear and distinct ideas are now guaranteed like nothing else Therefore, corporeal objects must in fact really exist. Just like we clearly and distinctly think they do. So, from our first clear and distinct idea in the Meditations , ‘I exist’, we find that God exists , other minds exist, and that the ‘outside world’ is real. Descartes has his work cut o ut for him now. W e might all agree with Descartes that we all h ave minds and we all have bodies. The question is, how do minds and bodies interact at all? 20

The mind -body problem : This is one of the most serious problems in philosophy today. Descartes has found in his proof an obvious and radical dualism between mind and body /bodies . Your human body is in fact a gross collection of objects. Descartes called these sm allish objects corpuscles, a word we still use. Corpuscle means ‘small body’. Your mind, however, is not made up of corpuscles at all, says Descartes. W hereas the corpuscles are all essentially extended , mind is essentially thinking , immaterial, spiritual . The mind is a substance that just thinks, and Descartes claims that the mind is not extended in space at all. The mind is a spirit, Descartes has p roven Now, Descartes has no problem in explaining how animals have mind -body interaction. The trick is, Descartes holds that animals never have minds at all! They are merely mindless bodies. Descartes would hold that the most intellige nt animals, like dolphin s, exhibit some pretty complicated behavior, but they really never think at all. Dolphins are just very complicated machines with no mind , says Descartes. They are like clocks, or robots. Now, what about human beings? Certainly human beings exhi bit machine -like behavior sometimes. For example, at the doctor’s office, if you are struck below the knee cap with that rubber hammer, your knee will jerk. That is a reflex action, and it is involuntary . Descartes say s that your mind played no role in t he reflex, it was all body. Body = machine. However, how about the actions we do which we claim to be voluntary? W ell, if they are voluntary, then somehow my mind commanded my body to behave in a certain way. But my body, which is corpuscles, should on ly respond to other bodies --much like the fifteen ball on a pool table only responds to the actions of the cue or other balls. You can’t telekinetically move the ball with your mind. It is this physical regularity of corpuscles that is the foundation for all of physical science. ‘Every action has an equal and opposite reaction’. Inertia. So, how can the mind affect body ? How can body affect mind? There seems to be no goo d answer at Descartes’ disposal. He seems committed to telekinesis and paraps ychology! But he knows that both telekinesis and parapsychology are hogwash. Thus, he must find the mind -body connection. In one of the most stunning moments in the history of W estern philosophy , Descartes claims th at the thinking substance’s headquarters of interaction with the body has a seat in the brain. This seat is the pineal gland . Now, the pineal gland happens to be one of the most mysterious structures in and around the human brai n. No one is sure what it does, even today But, to locate mind’s connection with body somewhere in particular at all seems like a balk. W hy not put the headquarters of mind/body interaction in the elbow??!! If the answer is, because then the mind would have to shoot messages a longer distance to the bra in if the locu s of interaction were not the pineal gland , then the question would be: Distance is no problem for the mind. The mind is not extended. The mind does not play by the same rules as corpuscles. Corpuscles are extended. The fifteen ball cannot affect the eight ball unless they actually come in physical contact with one another . How can the spiritual physically contact the physical? For interaction to occur with an extended substance, there must be physical contact. How can you have contact with a non -body at all? How could any physical thing interact with something so ghostly as the soul ? JOHN LOCKE (1632 -1704) English Locke’s most important work is the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In that book, he tries to find out what it is we can k now, and the way we can know it. 21

The things that we can know are ideas . Not physical objects Now, these are not Platonic Ideas or Platonic Forms, but they are the same things that we in the 20th Century think of when w e think of ideas. All experiences are ideas, and vice versa, for the British Empiricists, starting with Locke. You can have an idea of the first airplane on which you flew, an equilateral t riangle, the taste in your mouth, etc. Locke claims that the only way in which we can have ideas i s through experience . Experience takes 2 forms: sensation and reflection . Sensation occurs through sense experien ce, we are struck by the sight or taste or smell or texture or sound from some object or another and we then have that sensation of that part icular object. Reflectio n is just our ability to relive sensations we had at one time or another. Memories = reflections So, we cannot reflect on anything except that which we sensed at one time or another. No innate ideas : Locke holds th at we are born as blank slates, aka tabula rasa . Our minds are like blank chalkboards only to be filled in with experiences. Locke thought that those philosophers that argued for the reality of innate ideas did so on the grounds that the only way in which persons coul d agree to universal truths was by the fact that we are all ‘programmed’ the same way. One such su pposedly innate idea is that “ it is impossible for one and the same thing to both exist and not exist.” Locke thinks that the above idea is in fact true, bu t not with us innately. Locke holds that, only after a number of experiences, then we find the truth that something can not both exist and not exist at the same time. Locke points out that childr en seem not to be able to say this truth that is alleged to be with them since birth! Sensation, then, is the only source of ideas like yellowness, whiteness, heat, cold, soft, h ard, bitter, sweet, and so on. These are examples of simple ideas : the chief source of the raw material from which our knowledge is made. Simple ideas ‘enter us’ through the senses and can occur in reflection. Complex ideas are always ‘put together by the mind’ in reflection. Particular simple ideas of whiteness, hardness, and sweetness, which all come from sight, touch, and taste, can b e put tog ether to form the complex idea —sugar cube. Also, the mind can abstract the very complex idea of person from the less complex ideas of certain persons . Primary versus Secondary Qualities : These are the 2 different types of simple ideas Primary q ualities ‘really exist in the objects themselves’ --a snowball looks round and it is round, and it appears to be moving and really is moving. Secondary qualities that a snowball can have are whiteness and coldness. The snowball in itself is neither white nor cold, it just has the capability in it to create the ideas of coldness and whiteness in us. Primary qualities: solidity, ext ension, shape, motion, etc. Secondary qualities: colors, sounds, tastes, etc. W hat Locke is trying to do is show the differen ce between what is merely in the mind and what is in the world . Objects, then, are really always either moving or are at rest, but they only appear to us to be white or odorous. A baseball is primarily round, but only secondarily white, for example. Th e whiteness is just in the mind. Substance : ‘solid’ and ‘extended’ subsist in substance. Substance is what is really real. It makes primary qualities Sensations are caused by substance(s). But, w hat is it that we are able to sense? Just sensations, not substance. Substance is something ‘we know not what’. So how can Locke know it exists i f all knowledge is from experience ? 22

Three types of knowledge: intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive . Intuitive knowledge: we just know that ‘a circle is not a square’ and ‘I exist’ and such claims are 100% certain . Dem onstrative knowledge: math, e.g . From intuitive truths, we can demonstrate to other truths that were not originally grasped as intuitively true. Demonstrative claims like 2135 + 321 = 2456 are known 100% . Sensitive knowledge: IS NOT KNOW LEDGE IN THE STRICT SENSE. Sensitive knowledge never gives us certainty. That the chalkb oard is green could be a trick of the light or our eyes. So such a claim is not 100% true. W e could be fooled. It seem s certa in that I am sensing this page right now, but I could be incorrect. Nevertheless, we d o not doubt our senses too much in our day to day lives. Locke’s not too worried about it! Locke does not use God like Descartes did. But Locke thi nks it’s eas ily demonstrated that God exists. ETHICS AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY (they go hand in hand for Locke) Locke’s Ethics and Political Philosophy i nfluence d the Founders of the United States , especially Thomas Jefferson. For Locke, ethics should demonstrate w hat is Good and what is Evil. Locke thinks that the Good simply equals ‘t hat which increases pleasure’, e vil is simply ‘that which increases pain’. This equation of Goodness with pleasure is a theme that will occur often in British philosophy. The State of Nature : Imagine what the world would be like without any government at all. This would be the State of Nature. The philosopher Thomas Hobbes , who wrote before Locke, thought that in the State of Nature occurred the ‘war of all against all’. Everyone w as killing everyone else , stealing, etc. So, in the State of Nature , lives were ‘nasty, brutish, and short’. Just like in wartime today! Hobbes thought that the main purpose of any government was to put an end to the ‘war of all against all’. And, Hobb es thought that in the State of Nature there existed no ethical rights —it was every person for herself or himself! Locke disagreed with Hobbes and said that even in the State of Nature there were natural ethical rights. One of these rights is to estate (private Property ). It is not always protected, but it ought to always be, says Locke. W hereas Hobbes said that the Right to Private Property only exists when there is a law for it and a force enforcing that law, Locke claims that we have a right to priv ate property, whether that right is upheld or not. Civil Government: Government’s chief purpose for Locke is to e nsure that persons are able t o hold what they have a natural right to—one’s life, liberty, and estate . Otherwise, government should leave per sons alone. Life, liberty, and e state = our u nalienable /self -evident natural rights: these rights are u nalienable, even when people consent to be governed. Everyone has the right to live outside the state’s control if the state is breaking or not protect ing our God -given , self - evident, unalienable rights . If one’s behavior is such that he or she does not appear to be at odds with the government by which he or she is ruled, then that per son is offering ‘tacit consent’ to the government. AKA “voting with his or her feet” Sovereignty: The will of the majority should be represented by some legislature , no king or dictator . The legislature, then, should be sovereign. Sovereign = has the right to rule , because t he people elect the legislature Locke think s that the rightness of his ethics and political philosophy i s self -evident —it is just true and needs no proof. The Founders of the U.S. also thought it self -evident that their notion of Good Government was correct. BISHOP GEORGE BERKELEY (1685 -1753) Ethnically English, but lives most of his life in Ireland Bishop Berkeley follows right after Locke. Berkeley is not known for an ethical theory , but for his metaphysics. Berkeley thought that esse est percipi —to exist is to be pe rceived , and vice vers a. In other words, nothing exists that is not being sensed; and if something is not sensed, it does not exist. This would lead to the conclusion that if you turn your back on something you were looking at, then that thing would cease to exist, but Berkele y will have an answer for that later. All that we encounter are ideas —our own ideas. Even when we try to conceive of the existence of something that is supposedly outside our minds, we run into our own ideas. Berkeley thinks this is more commonsense tha n Locke! 23

Berkeley is speaking directly to Locke’s notion of substance --the ‘something we know not what’. “matter” or “substance” to Berkeley are meaningless terms. They refer to nothing real at all. Locke’s substance is out. Berkeley holds that to ass ert the existence of something we cannot perceive is outlandish --how can we claim that there is some thing that we never perceive? W hat is the difference, then, between secondary and primary qualities? W hereas Locke claimed that objects had primary qualit ies that endured even without us to sense them, Berkeley cla ims that any thing is just the “sum of its perceived qualities .” Primary vs. secondary qualities becomes moot. So, Berkeley is denying that there is substance /matter at all! A sugar cube is jus t a combination of perceptions that we have, and there is no sugar cube without a perceiver. The sweetness of the sugar cube is as real as the cubicness. Abstract & General Ideas : AKA, Plato’s Forms/Aristotle’s forms/Aquinas’ universals . One abstract & general idea that those old - school metaphysicians thought we could have is the idea of triangularity. The question for Berkeley is, does the term ‘triangu larity’ refer to any real concept or percept at all? Berkeley says that when we try to conceive the idea of triangular ity, all we can do is conceive particul ar triangles and not a concept of triangularity . A triangle is a concept all right , but triangularity is neither concept nor percept! Similarly, when we try to have an idea of justice , we cannot eve r do anything but have ideas of particular world events and how we feel about them . Justice per se is a fiction —an abstract and general idea —just like triangularity. Abstract & General ideas, then, never refer to anything real. ‘number’ is not real , but numbers are —like Π, 100, etc. —as concepts , which are as real as percepts (like red and salty) are. But abstract & general ideas are NOT. God and the existe nce of things : Remember when Berkeley said that esse est percipi W ell, if the only things tha t exist are those things which are perceived or conceived , then if something is not being perceived or conceived , then it does not exist. Does the universe , then, cease to exist every time you blink your eyes? No, because there is a mind that is always p erceiving the world: God. God’s mind (AKA God) perceives even when our minds do not. So, even when you are n ot directly perceiving your car, for example , you can be sure that it still exists, because God is perceiving it. W e humans are limited perceiver s, but God is the universal perceiver. The world’s in His head! Our ideas are not caused by substances, but by God. God also makes the universe orderly, calling for matches to light after they are struck, etc. God must exist, otherwise our percepts wo uld be all chaotic . So although God cannot be directly experienced, His existence is easily deduced from the order of the world , Berkeley thinks. Ultimately, the world i s not material, but it is ideal . Berkeley asks : has the world thus changed now that we have that realization ? Of course not. But, Dr. Samuel Johnson (a famous professor of that time) thought he had rejected Berkeley’s whole philosophy by kicking a large stone! But was not Dr. Johnson just missing the point?? DAVID HUME (1711 -1776) Scottish . Hume is the most radical empiricist there is. He calls t he contents of t he mind perceptions , and they are all we know Hume claims that there are two ‘types ’ of perceptions —impressions and ideas . W e nowadays call ideas ‘memories’. To act ually feel pain firsthand is an impression , the re collection of that pain is an idea , for example. Impressions and ideas are not truly different in kind or type , but you could say that impressions are just very intense ideas, and ideas are very weak impre ssions. They truly only differ in degree, not type Also, there can never be ideas without there first being impressions. W e receive impr essions original ly from sense experience. Other than impressions and ideas, what is there? Nothing , as far as we k now. Association of Ideas : Our minds just associate id eas. This is what our minds do as a matter of custom, no more W e associate ideas in one of 3 ways: First , our minds associate ideas by resembl ance to each other; like in saying that , for example, nor thern Texas looks like a panhandle . Does it really ? W e think it anyways , as a matter of custom Second, association occurs with ideas that are ‘close ’ to one another in contiguity , like saying that North America and South America are 2 separate continent s. Are they really ? W e think it anyways , as a matter of custom Third, we associate ideas some ideas together by the relation of cause and effect . W hich has 3 parts to it… Hume’s philosophy on cause and effect is very important. It makes science totte r! Here’s how: W hen we strike a match, it usually igni tes. So, o ur minds tend to associate the two events into a cause and effect relationship. But is 24

there really cause and effect going on there? Our minds only customarily associate a match strike and flame as being in a causal relationship because … First, contiguity , because the match strike and the flame happen close together in space and time . Second, priority in time , because the match strike happens before the flame. Third, constant conjunction , because match strike s and the resulting flame s seem to always occur together. However, i t is only through custom that we get contiguity, priority in time, and constant conjunction. Hume’s point is that cause and effect is only something that is associat ed by our minds, and to say that it is necessary that in the world a match strike always causes a flame is , of course, to say too much. Hume’s attack on the tenet that cause and effect is something that really happens in the world attacks all scientific, empiri cal knowledge. If cause and effect is not a necessary feature of the universe, then anything goes! W hat exists external to our minds?: All that we can know is our own ideas and impressions. Impressions are subjective and not objective . W e canno t know the objective. W e cannot know external /physical objects. Our minds do tell us , however, that some impressions and ideas come with constancy and coherence . Since particular impressions and ideas we have —like an impression of a chalkboard —seem to ha ve constancy and coherence, we think of the chalkboard as an external object, and not a figment of imagination. However, this is just a customary belief that we have, thus there is no proof that anything exists outside our minds. The Self : H ume denies th at we have any perception whatsoever of the self. Because, we can never come into contact with our own selves. W hat do we find on our search for personal identity? W hat we do come into contac t with is particular memories (perceptions ) of heat, cold, pai n, pleasure —nothing more . W hat we call the self is really only a ‘bundle of perceptions’. You are your experiences and memories, that’s it. In fact, Hume says that the mind is only ‘a theater’ where the perceptions have their screening, so to speak. Other than that, our minds are nothing but a n empty container, as it were. The mind is nothing much at all. God : Hume is skeptical about God’s existence too. He looks at cosmological and teleological proofs for God’s existence as saying, ‘ Look at this i ntricate wrist watch that is the cosmos . Certainly this wrist watch did not come together by accident. Thus God exists as designer. ’ Hume responds : ‘Why didn’ t the cosmos come together and/or originate by mere accident? Isn’t comparing the cosmos to a wristwa tch a bad analogy? W ho says nothing can come from nothing anyway? ’ Remember Hume’s criticism of the notion that cause and effect is something that really happens in the cosmos . Hume now says that we are applying an unseen cause (God) and an unseen effect (the birth of the cosmos ) to the problem. And, isn’t cause and effect always just a customary association of ideas anyhow? In fact, when we say that the universe must have been caused by God, we are just associating our impressions illegitimately , and nothi ng more. W e cannot know whether God exists and/or whether the cosmos is eternal This does not make Hume an atheist, but he is a skeptic about God’s existence for sure. Hume’s Fork: O nly 2 types of meaningful declarative prop ositions exist: Relations of Ideas & Matters of Fact Relations of Ideas are just true by definition: Like that a bachelor is unmarried or that 12+12=24. All are 100% certain forever , but just because the alternative would be wrong by definition . Math. is in this group for Hume Matters of Fact: These are all not merely true by definition, and that is why they can never be ascertained with 100% certainty: E.G., Match strikes cause flames; Jupiter has moons . These are science truths says Hume W hat is there besides Re lations of Ideas and Matters of Fact (the 2 tine s of Hume’s Fork)? “Sophist ry and Illusion”, said Hume. He wanted the history of philoso phy scrapped when it was all metaphysical , not meaningful . HUME’S ETHICS 25

W hy do we call some homicides ‘murders ’, so me not ? (‘Homicide ’ literally means to kill a person .) Certainly the act of killing another human being —homicide —is not always called a crime. Sometimes it is called self -defense, sometimes a just execution. Somet imes someone gets a medal for a homicid e! Justice , therefore, is not to be found in the act itself. Justice is found in how we feel about an act. However, to base an ethics on how we feel would be dangerous if many of us feel one way about a certain act at the same time that many of us feel a different way. But, luckily, we are all more similar than different in this case… We almost all seem to feel sympathy for certain deeds. W e almost all tend to feel disapproval for other deeds . So, virtue = that which makes us feel approval . and vic e = that which makes us feel disapproval. Hum e thinks that society tends to look at acts that generally benefit all of society as useful , and therefore G ood. Acts which are harmful to society are typically deemed evil because they are counterproductive t o society W e believe that peace and well -being are gained by living in a society (instead of having a war of all against all). So, justice reflects our self -interest, but our self -interest is not just to get more goods for ourselves at any cost. W e embr ace society and somewhat sacrifice our own immediate self -interest for a common good. Justice originates and ultimately exists in the public well -being. KANT (1724 -1804) and his Critique of Pure Reason . German. (W e are not doing his ethical theory in this course .) Immanuel Kant reacts to Hume’s skepticism . The Kantian approach against Hume is called ‘critical philosophy’. The question that critical philosophy asks and tries to answer is, “W hat can we know apart from experience?” A very famous quot e from Kant: “Though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises from experience.” He is saying the British Empiricists went a little too far, especially Hume. Kant thought that Hume was wrong in saying that causality was just a customary association of ideas. Instead, Kant sugges ts that knowledge of causality come s from rational judgment a priori . That every effect must have a cause is a matter of rational judgment —this knowledge of the way things in the world work d oes not come just from sense experience or custom , it is prior to (a priori) all that If we think that every effect must have a cause, and we all do, this surely could not come from sense experience, for we will never experience every event ever to happen ! And since we could not even imagine an uncaused effect (just try it), there’s our clue that causality is no mere matter of custom! So w e confidently say that Austin is the capital of Texas, all dogs are pooches , and that 7 + 5 =12, etc., but how? Judgments: a priori, a posteriori; synthetic, and analytic: W henever we make a judgment/statement , we make a sentence comprised of a subject and a predicate. For ex ample, ‘7 + 5’ is the subject, ‘= 12’ is the predicate. Analytic judgments = judgments where the predicate is already contained in the subject. That means that the predicate and the subject are just 2 different names for the same thing. All bachelors are unmarried. Duh! Synthetic judgments = the predicate is not contained in the subject. For example, ‘there are exactly 20 persons in this room right now’ or ‘the shortest distance between two points is a straight line’. All analytic judgments are a priori . This means that their truth or falsity is known completely independent of experience. Here’s an analytic a priori claim: All bachelors are unmarried. 100% certain forever, but uninteresting. Here’s anothe r a priori analytic judgme nt: x = x. Here’s another: A three -pointer is worth three points . Now, some synthetic judgments are a pos teriori . ‘Austin is the capital of Texas ’ is known only after actual experience. And it s predicate is not merely another name for its subject. Interesting, but never 100% true forever. Here’s another a posterior i synthetic judgment: The Dodgers play t heir home games in Los Angeles . However, some synthetic judgments are a priori . K ant thinks that “ 7 + 5 = 12” is an a priori synthetic statement. Its 100% truth is ascertained without experience, yet its pr edicate ( = 12) is not the same as its subject ( 7 + 5). 26

Another a priori synthetic judgment Kant discovered is this: The shortest distance between any 2 points is a line . Here’s another synthetic a pr iori claim: Every effect has a cause . And another: The shortest distance between 2 points is a s traight line. Such claims are 100% certain forever AND interesting. Kant thinks he’s found it! The a priori sy nthetic! Physics, math ematics, and geometry come f rom the intelligent mind itself, but not as me re playing with definitions or custom as Hume had claimed. By the way, there’s no such thing as a judgment analytic and a posteriori at the same time . Think about it. If Kant is correct, and th e a priori synthetic can happen , then he has made the most major discovery W hat Kant has shown here is that the mind exists , but not merely as the ‘blank slate’ or empty ‘theatre’ the British Empiricists thought . It is ‘hard -wired ’ to think in certain categorial ways. This is called Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the Ca tegories of Thought , and it is central Kant’s Copernican Revolution in Philosophy : It was Copernicus who solved prob lems in astronomy by claiming that the Earth really revol ves around the Sun, not the other way around as everybody thought with their commonsense! Kant is using Transce ndental Deductions to rescue some ‘things ’ from the extreme skepticism of Hume. Kant is saying that some unobservable ‘things’ still ‘exist’, l ike the Categories. That’s Kant’s revolution in philosophy . Kant wants to solve problems in philosophy by show ing that the mind does not conform to ob jects, but that objects necessarily conform to mind. The mind is more than an blank slate or an empty theater , Kant thinks. The mind ‘imposes its w ay of knowing upon its objects’, after it encounters the sensible m anifold. The sensible manifold = the raw mishmash of percepts that we get at first through the senses . The intelligent mind is such that we must get our objects in space and time . This is something that we can not help. It is the way we necessarily thin k as intelligent beings at all . Space and time as necessary treatments to the sensible manifold by any intelligent mind from the get -go are discovered through the so-called Transcendental Aesthetic . Percepts that are thus treated by the mind by the Trans cendental Aesthetic are now objects. Hume dismissed space and time as fictions, words without any meaning. But Kant thinks he finds where they come from —the intelligent mind itself —not customarily, but necessarily. Space and time are certainly not objec ts, and yet they ‘exist’ as the way the mind must necessarily ‘see’ objects. Space and time are transcendental, like the self … The self: W e notice that we all have unity of experience. For example, we can put a sentence together that takes 3 seconds to utter, and not get lost from the first word to the last. You’re the same person even at different times Thus, for any object we encounter, there must be a single self doing the encountering, or else our experiences would not have th e coherence that they do have. W e would freak -out, as it were. Thus, all of my experiences are mine Thus, w e deduce that we all are selves . W e discover the Transcendental Unity of A pperception . Transcendental = we cannot experience it, but it’s there . Apperceptio n = self -awareness . The world as I necessarily experience it could only come through the self. The self, thus, ‘exists’ . I am the same person I always was, though my memories have undergone many changes. The ‘I’ ‘exists ’, but not empirically . The ‘I’ ‘exists’ transcendentally . I am my self , Kant thinks, not just a ‘bundle of perceptions’ as Hume thought. Phenomenal v s. noumenal reality : The world that we get from experience is phenomenal = not necessarily real For example, when we observe a chair, we cann ot help but experience it through the C ategories of the mind, like cause and effect. And in space and time. W e always think the chair was caused . And 3-dimensional , for example s In other w ords, we cannot remove the ‘rose -colored lens ’ through which we g et objects —our mind is that lens ! The question is, what are things like without the categories or space/time or self (the ‘lens ’ of the mind )? The way things are without us is the way things are in- themselves . There is a way that things are without us, we just can never know how that is! Philosophe rs have always wanted to know the thing -in-itself = the really real The way things are without us = noumena . W e will never know if we are ever at the noumenal level. Maybe the thing -in-itself is just like objects we see , or maybe it is ra dically different —we will never know . Philosophers from the beginning have quested after the thing -in-itse lf. But it will never be known to be known! 27

Transcendental I deas of Pure Reason = soul , cosmos, & God . Hume and K ant agree: these 3 don’t necessarily exist. ‘Pure Reason’ is just Kant’s terminology for what everyone else (Hume included) calls ‘metaphysics’ These a re ‘transcendental ’ because we could never experience them with our senses . But Kant’s terminology ‘Ide as of Pure Reason’ means ‘ fictions of metaphysics’ . He and Hume would agree that the soul, the cosmos, and God are illegitimate objects with which to do any meaningful philosophic or scientific investigation. W e shall neither observe the supposed ly immor tal and free soul like an object nor transcendentally deduce it like the Categories. So why do we believe in the soul ? Soul is a mere Transcendental Idea , a product of overactive mind! W e can never observe the cosmos nor transcendentally deduce it . It’s a mere Transcendental Idea. W e can never observe that which we figure to be the c ause of the world —God. And a proof for Him is impossible, so why do so many people believe in Him? God is a mere Transcendental Idea —neither a legitimate empirical object nor something transcendentally deduced like the Categories. God is what we think when we think too much! We are just locked into thinking that self, cosmos, and God must exist. Until Kant. Kant notices that soul , cosmos , and Go d are just products of ou r overactive minds . Kant is trying to show us the way out of some old traps The Antinomies: Kant shows 4 antinomies = 4 questions where a final answer cannot be reached. These are antimomies because a yes answer to these questions has just as much forc e and logic behind it as a no answer!! Thus the questions and the ‘beings’ the questions are about are bogus . The Antinomies’ subjects are Transcendental Ideas . 1. Is the cosmos limited in time and space, or is it unlimited? It can be proven either wa y! 2. Is every substance in the cosmos made up of simple, indivisible parts, or is every part divisible? W e can see the importance of th is question in today’s science: are quarks the smallest possible sub -atomic particle, or are there smaller particles ? W e will never know if we have found the smallest piece possible, Kant proves. 3. Do we have free -will? (in other words, do we have souls like Descartes, Aquinas, and others thought ?) On one hand, we could show that human beings always act like they ar e ‘program med’, like rats in a cage . Of course, in that case we would just be applying the concept of cause and effect to objects in the sensible manifold. On the other hand, Kant says that we could consider human beings in their noumenal sense. Maybe it is only in the world of phenomena that we see persons as determined. Maybe, in themselves , persons are free. Both proofs work! 4. Does God exist? One can just as easily prove His existence as H is non -existence! Kant’s attack on proofs for God’s exi stence: proofs of God’s existence come in 3 varieties , Kant thinks . 1. Ontological /Cartesian proofs. Such proofs tend to proceed with the following theme (in brief) : W e all know that God is t he being that is perfect. A non existent being would not be pe rfect, therefore God must exist. That’s how Desca rtes (and others) thought he could prove God with his Cartesian /ontological proofs Kant shows that the flaw in such a proof turns on the ‘conception ’ of existence . Because, existence is no concept! Kan t issues this rule: You cannot make ‘existenc e’ (or words like it) a predicate. W hat Kant is saying is that for any r eal thing, it must exist anyway, whether we ‘prove’ it or not! Don’t use terms like, real , is, or exists that way! Or: for any entity a t all, if it exists, then it exists ! And nothing more. The question is, does God exist? If He does, then H e does, of course. But does the ontological /Cartesian type of pro of prove His existence? No, argue s Kant. Try to think of Ka nt’s point this way: Take a chalkboard. Does it exist? Of course. It’s empirical . How abo ut any thing we could see ? It of course exists. For any empirical thing whatsoe ver, it of course exists! To say ‘ chalkboard exists ’ is nonsense, beca use for it to be empirical at a ll, it of course exists. Do h! But God, by definition, can not be empirical like a dog, for example . No amount of talk/proof , thus, shows He exists. And Kant has already shown in the 4 th antinomy that it is just as easy to ‘prove’ God as to ‘disprove’ Him . ‘God exists’ and ‘God does not exist’ are equally meaningless statements, because they use ‘existence’ as a predicate. Kant is saying: trying to prove God ’s existence at all is like trying t o become a millionaire by forging zeroes on your bank account! Cartesian /ontological proofs are ‘verbal exercise’, nothing more. 2. Cosmological proofs. Kant’s attack on these is much easier to explain. Those who wanted to prove that the cosmos had to be caused, and that this cause would have to be God, were misapplying the category of cause and effect. Aquinas’ first three of the Five W ays were cosmological proofs. 28

Kant says that the judgment of cause and effec t can only be made on objects from the sensible manifold —dogs, chairs, planets , bacteria, etc. But the cosmos itself could never be seen, no matter how powerful the telescope! And, God could never be from the sensible manifold (God could never be observed ), thus to make any cause and effect judgments about God and the cosmos is to make a mistake. Metaphysics always involves such mistakes. Both God and cosmos are not true objects, but mere Transcendental Ideas. Thus they are illegitimate ‘beings’ with which to d o any real proof. Scientists today have neither a God -detector nor a cosmos -detector f or that reason. 3. Teleological proofs . T hese arguments are just like the 5th proof in Aquinas or today’s intelligent design argument s. They are just a particular type of cosmological argument, and t hey are the easiest for Kant to reject. Aquinas sa id that the world was too orderly to be thrown together accidentally. They argued that t here must be some purpose — some end —some reason —some intelligent design. Kant argues that teleological arguments do not show how the raw material of the world came abo ut. This problem lands us back into t he problem of the cosmological pro of, and we already know it won’t work! And anyway s, who says that the ‘design ’ is really rea l? Even if we all see some design , it might be phenomena l, not noumena l. And if it’s not n oumenal, then it’s not really real. Are God and His design really real? How could we ever know ? Faith in God’s existence is never the same as knowledge of His existence. THE END